LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Shelf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



ORION, 



AND 



OTHER POEMS. 



BY 



CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS. 






it j ■> 




% 



PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1880. 



T 



.On 



Copyright, 1880, by Charles G. D. Roberts. 



TO 

REV. G. GOODRIDGE ROBERTS, M. A., 

MY FATHER AND DEAREST FRIEND, 

THESE FIRST-FRUITS 

ARE DEDICATED. 



'42 (pike Ildv, rs xa\ allot oaot r^ds 6eoi, doiyjzs. uo\ xalui 
ytvindai ravdodsv. 



CONTENTS. 



To the Spirit of Song . 

Orion 

Ariadne 

Launcelot and the Four Queens 
Ballad of the Poet's Thought 
A Ballad of Three Mistresses 
Ballad to a Kingfisher 
Ballad of a Bride . 
Love-Days .... 

Memnon ..... 



Rondeau. — " Hesper Appears" 
Rondeau. — " Without one Kiss 
Rondeau to A. W. Straton (Written 

graph Album) . 
The Flight 
One Night 
A Song of Morning 
Ode to Drowsihood 
Ode to Night . 



his Auto 



PAGE 

9 

30 
37 
50 
52 
54 
56 
58 
60 
67 
68 

69 
70 

73 
76 

77 
80 



8 CONTENTS. 










PAGE 


Amoris Vincula .82 


Sonnet. — Iterumne? 








84 


Sonnet. — At Pozzuoli 








85 


Sappho 








86 


Miriam (Sapphics) .... 








92 


Miriam (Choriambics) 








94 


A Blue Blossom .... 








97 


The Shannon and the Chesapeake 








99 


The Maple 








i°3 


To Winter 








105 


Epistle to W. Bliss Carman . 








109 



TO THE SPIRIT OF SONG. 



White as fleeces blown across the hollow heaven 

Fold on fold thy garment wraps thy shining limbs; 
Deep thy gaze as morning's flamed thro' vapors riven, 

Bright thine hair as day's that up the ether swims. 
Surely I have seen the majesty and wonder, 

Beauty, might, and splendor of the soul of song ; 
Surely I have felt the spell that lifts asunder 

Soul from body, when lips faint and thought is strong 
Surely I have heard 
The ample silence stirred 
By intensest music from no throat of bird : — 
Smitten down before thy feet 
From the paths of heaven sweet, 
Lowly I await the song upon my lips conferred. 



ORION. 

Two mighty arms of thunder-cloven rock 

Stretched ever westward toward the setting sun, 

And took into their ancient scarred embrace 

A laughing valley and a crooning bay. 

The gods had stilled them in their primal throes, 

And broken down their writhed extremities 

Sheer to the open sea. And now pine-belts 

And strayed fir-copses lined their shaggy sides ; 

And inland toward the island's quiet heart 

White torrents cleft the screens, and answered each 

To other from the high cliffs closer drawn, 

Kept ever brimming from eternal caves 

In azure deeps of snow, and feeding full 

A strong, swift river. And the river flowed 

With tumult, till it caught the mighty speech 

Rolled upward from the ocean, when it paused, 

And hushed its rapid song in reverence, 

And wound slow-footed through the summer vale, 

And met its sovereign with majestic calm. 

ii 



12 



ORION 



The sunset with its red and purple skirts 

Hung softly o'er the bay, whose rippled breast 

Flushed crimson, and the froth-streaks round the beach 

Were glowing pink. The sands burned ruddy gold, 

And foot-marks crossing them lay sharp and black. 

A flood of purple glory swept the shores, 

And spread upon the vineyards, and the groves 

Of olives round the river-banks, and clothed 

The further matted jungles ; whence it climbed 

The ragged scaurs and jagg'd ravines, until 

It lay a splendor on the endless snow. 

Where the slow swirls were swallowed in the tide, 
Some stone-throws from the stream's mouth, there the 

sward 
Stretched thick and starry from the ridge's foot 
Down to the waves' wet limits, scattering off 
Across the red sand level stunted tufts 
Of yellow beach-grass, whose brown panicles 
Wore garlands of blown foam. Amidst the slope 
Three sacred laurels drooped their dark-green boughs 
About a high-piled altar. There the king, 
OEnopion, to whose sceptre bowed with awe 
The people dwellers in the steep-shored Chios, 
Stood praying westward ; in his outstretched hand 
The griding knife, well whetted, clothed with dread. 



ORION. I3 

The royal priest's dark tresses, made aware 

Of coming winter by some autumn snows, 

Hung down his blue-dyed mantle, which he girt 

Up seemly for the sacrifice ; a beard, 

Short, black, and silken, clothed his lips and chin ; 

Beneath deep brows his keen eyes lurked half hid, 

And never rested : now they drank the stream 

Poured from the fiery sunset's sunken springs. 

A supplication moved his silent lips, 

Swift-winged to seek Apollo, and beseech 

Regard unto the rites e'en now begun. 

Anon he dropped his arm ; and straight the youths, 

Chosen of Chios' fairest race, upbore 

The victim to the pile, — a tawny wolf, 

Blood-stained, fast bound in pliant withes, fed fat 

On many a bleating spoil of careless folds, 

His red tongue lolling from his fanged jaws, 

His eyes, inflamed, shrinking with terror and hate, 

His writhen sinews strained convulsively. 

Meanwhile from out a neighbor gorge, which spake 
Rough torrent-thunders through its cloak of pines, 
Along the shore came one who seemed to wear 
The grandeur of the mountains for a robe, 
The torrent's strength for girdle, and for crown 
The sea's calm for dread fury capable, — 



i 4 ORION. 

A Hunter laden with the spotted pride 

Of kingly beasts before not dared of men, — 

And stood without the laurels' sacred shade, 

Which his large presence deepened. When the knife 

Let blood well-pleasing to Apollo forth 

The victim's gasping throat, — who yet cried not, 

But glared still hate upon his murderers 

And died uncraven, — then the Hunter bent 

His godlike head with awe unto the gods, 

And so kept bowed, the while the King drew forth 

Wine from a full skin-bottle nigh and poured 

A beaded, dark libation. Then he raised 

His head again, — like a tall pine that bends 

Unto a sudden blast, and so keeps bent 

Some moments, till the tempest passes by, — 

And cast his burden down before the King, 

And said, — 

" With skins of lions, leopards, bears, 
Lynxes, and wolves, I come, O King, fulfilling 
My pledge, and seeking the delayed fulfilling 
Of some long hopes. For now the mountain lairs 
Are empty, and the valley folds secure. 
The inland jungles shall be vexed no more 
With muffled roarings through the cloudy night, 
And heavy splashings in the misty pools. 
The echo-peopled crags, shall howl no more 



ORION. 

With hungry yelpings 'mid the hoary firs. 

The breeding ewe in the thicket will not wake 

With wolves' teeth at her throat, nor drinking bull 

Bellow in vain beneath the leopard's paw. 

Your maidens will not fear to quit by night 

Their cottages to meet their shepherd lads ; 

And these shall leave safe flocks, and have no need 

Of blazing fagots. Nor without some toils 

Are these things so. For mighty beasts did yield 

Their ornament up most reluctantly ; 

And some did grievous battle. But the pledge 

And surety of a blissful harborage, 

Whither through buffets rude I needs must fare, 

Made heavy labors light. And if, hard pressed, 

My knees perchance waxed faint, or mine eyes dim, 

The strong earth stayed me, and the unbowed hills, 

The wide air, and the ever-joyous sun, 

And free sea leaping up beneath the sun, — 

All were to me for kindly ministrants, 

And lent glad service to their last-born, — man, 

Whom, reverent, the gods, too, favored well. 

And if to me, sleepless, alone, by night 

Came phantoms from polluted spots, and shades 

Unfettered, wavering round my cliff-edged couch, 

Fain to aghast me ; them I heeded not, 

As not worth heed. For there the deep-eyed Night 



i5 



1 6 ORION. 

Looked down on me ; unflagging voices called 

From unpent waters falling ; tireless wings 

Of long winds bare me tongueless messages 

From star-consulting, silent pinnacles ; 

And breadth, and depth, and stillness fathered me. 

But now, O King, seeing I have at cost 

Of no slight labor done thy rugged hest, 

And seeing hard strife should win sweet favors, grant 

The good long wrought for, that amid the groves 

And sunny vineyards I may drink deep draughts 

Of Love's skilled mixing, and of sweet mouth's gift ' 

Of maiden-lipped, snow-breasted Merope." 

So sped the winged words. And thus the King, 

CEnopion, to whose sceptre bowed with awe 

The people, dwellers in the steep-shored Chios : 

" Great honor hast thou won and shalt possess, 

And I will pay thee to the uttermost. 

Thy couch this night be softer, and more blest 

Thy visions," — but in subtlety he spake, 

And went apart a little from the place, 

And filled with sullen wine two cups, well wrought. 

But one he tinctured with a Colchian drug 

And gave his guest to drink, with honeyed words, 

But crooked, serpent-smooth, — " Drink this, in pledge 

Of those deep draughts for which thou art athirst. 



ORION. 

And now I go to bid the maid be glad 

And make all ready. Rest thee here with these, 

And I will come and fetch thee." And he went 

Up from the shore and in among the vines, 

Until his mantle gleamed athwart the lanes 

Of sunset through the far, gray olive-groves. 

The Hunter turned, and heeded not the men. 

But went apart close by the sleepless sea 

And sat him down, because his eyes were dim, 

And his head heavy, and his sinews faint. 

And now it was about the set of sun, 
And the west sea-line with its quivering rim 
Had hid the sun-god's curls. A sanguine mist 
Crept up, and to the Hunter's heavy eyes 
Became as if his eyes were filled with blood. 
He guessed the traitorous cup, and his great heart 
Was hot, his throat was hot ; but heavier grew 
His head, and he sank back upon the sand, 
Nor saw the light go out across the sea, 
Nor heard the eagle scream among the crags, 
Nor stealthy laughter echo up the shore, 
Nor the slow ripple break about his feet. 

The deep-eyed Night drew down to comfort him, 
And lifted her great lids and mourned for him, 
Foreknowing all his woe, and herself weak 

2 



17 



1 8 ORION. 

To bend for him the indomitable fates ; 

And heavier dews wet all the trees and fields; 

And sighs cool-drawn from infinite wells of space 

Breathed round him ; and from forth the unbowed hills 

Came strength, and from the ocean essences 

And influences to commune with him, 

But found his spirit blind, and dumb, and deaf, 

Not eager and expectant, as of old, 

At every portal of the sleepless mind. 

But hark ! what feet are these that stir the vines 
Beneath the big, sweet-smelling grape-clusters ? 
What feet are these that leave the muffling grass 
And crush the shingle sharply up the beach ? 
Out of the foamless sea a heavy fog 
Steamed up, rolled in on all the island shores, 
But heavier, denser, like a cloak, where lay 
The Hunter ; and the darkness gathered thick, 
More thick the fog and darkness where he lay, — 
Like as a mother folds more close her child 
At night when sudden street-brawl jars her dreams. 
But now the folding vapors veiled him not, 
The ineffectual darkness hid him not, 
For one came with the King and bare a torch, 
And stood beside the Hunter where he lay ; 
And all the darkness shuddered and fled back 



ORION. 



19 



Sullenly into the grim-visaged crags, 

Beneath their battered foreheads : and the fog 

Crept up a chilly horror round the King, 

Made huge the writhed and frowning mountain-brows, 

Till cliff, and cloud, and chaos of thick night 

Toppled about the place, and each small sound 

Of footstep or of stealthy whisper rang 

Tortured and shrill within the cavernous hollows. 

Before the King, before the torch-bearer, 

Stood one beside the Hunter's head, — a slave 

Beside the god-begotten, — and he bare 

Back with one arm his cloak, and in his hand 

He bare a cup — with suchlike juice in it 

As slew Alcmena's son — above the face, 

The strong, white, godlike face, more deathly white 

Even than death ; then into each close lid 

He dropped the poison with a loathing hand, 

While he whose light made manifest the deed 

Winced in his eyes and saw not, would not see, 

Those eyes that knew not of their light gone out. 

And heavy drops stood forth on all the rocks, 

And ocean moaned unseen beneath the fog ; 

But the King laughed — not loud — and drew his cloak 

Closer about him, and went up the beach, 

And they two with him. 

Now the fog rolled back 



2 o ORION. 

And a low moon came out across the sea, 
And o'er the sea flocked out the pasturing stars, 
And still he lay upon the trodden sand, 
And still the ripple brake about his feet. 
So moved the burdened hours toward the dawn ; 
But suddenly their burden was forgot, 
For music welled from out the throbbing waves, 
And melody filled all the silver air. 
And silver shoulders under wondrous gold 
Of dripping tresses brake the shining waste 
Whence came the maids beloved of Doris, fair 
As stars and lovely for the stars to see, 
And stood and mourned about the Hunter there, — 
And cursed were his eyes that could not see. 
And had he seen as grievous were his case, 
Blinded with love and stricken with delight. 
So came they weeping, and their yellow hair 
Fell round them, while they smote their lyres, and 
sang: 

" O god-begotten Strophe A. 

And dear to all the gods ! 

For thee quick-dropping tears 

Make heavy our eyes and hot. 
Be he of gods forgotten 

That smote thee, their gifts as rods 
To scourge him all his years, 
Sparing him not. 



ORION. 21 

" For thee the long-heaving Antistrophe A. 

Ocean, fruitful of foam, 

Groaned in his depths and was sore 
Troubled, grieving for thee. 
Grew Clotho sick of her weaving, 

And the fury of storms that come 
Out of the wilderness hoar 
Went pitying thee. 

" For thee the all-bearing Strophe B. 

Mother, the bountiful Earth, 

Who hath borne no fairer son 

In her kindly bosom and broad, 
Will not be comforted, wearing 

Thy pain like her labor of birth, 

And hath veiled her in vapors as one 
Stricken down, overawed. 

" For thee the all-covering Antistrophe B. 

Night, the comforting mother, 
Wept round thee pitifully 

Nor withheld her compassionate hands ; 
And sleep from her wings low-hovering 
Fell kindly and sweet to no other 
Between the unharvested sky 
And the harvested lands. 

" We all are made heavy of heart, we weep with thee, sore with 

thy sorrow, — 
The Sea to its uttermost part, the Night from the dusk to the morrow, 



22 ORION. 

The unplumbed spaces of Air, the unharnessed might of the Wind, 
The Sun that outshaketh his hair before his incoming, behind 
His outgoing, and laughs, seeing all that is, or hath been, or shall 

be, 
The unflagging Waters that fall from their well-heads soon to the 

sea, 
The high Rocks barren at even, at morning clothed with the rime ; 
The strong Hills propping up heaven, made fast in their place for 

all time ; 
Withal the abiding Earth, the fruitful mother and kindly, 
Who apportions plenty and dearth, nor withholds from the least 

thing blindly, 
With suchlike pity would hide thy reverent eyes indeed 
Wherewith the twin Aloides fain she would hide at their need : 
But they withstood not Apollo, they brake through to Hades, 

o'erthrown ; 
But thee the high gods follow with favor, kind to their own; 
For of thee they have lacked not vows, nor yellow honey, nor oil, 
Nor the first fruit red on the boughs, nor white meal sifted with toil, 
Nor gladdening wine, nor savor of thighs with the fat burned 

pure, — 
Therefore now of their favor this ill thing shall not endure ; 
It endures but a little, seeing the gods make ready their mercy, 
Giving for thy well-being a skilfuller goddess than Circe, 
For the putting away of thy trouble, the setting far off of thy pain, 
And she shall repay thee double, making thy loss thy gain. 
But come, for the night fulfils, the gray in the sky gives warning ; — 
Then get thee up to the hills and thou shall behold the morning." 

The Hunter stirred ; and all the long gray shore 
Lay empty, and the ripple whispered not, 



ORION. 23 

Awed by the wide-spread silence. Then he rose, 

Groping, and strove to put aside the night 

That clung beneath his eyelids, — till he knew, 

And his whole heart sank, knowing. Then his voice 

Brake thus from out his utter misery 

(The while a sound went, — " Get thee up to the hills ; 

Thou shalt behold the morning;" but he heard not) : 

" Oh, black night, black forever ! No light forever ! 

Oh, long, long night, just fallen to hang forever, 

Never to break nor lighten ! Whose the heart 

That dared it? Whose the hateful thought? What 

hand 
Wrought me this curse, dealt me this ruin, this woe 
Unutterable, pitiless, unmeasured, — 
Put out my light, portioned me night forever ? 
Oh ye that die not, ye that suffer not, 
Gods that are mindful, seeing good and evil ! 
If ever unto you have risen a savor 
Acceptable, of honey, and oil, and wine, 
Me offering; and if a frequent smoke 
Have circled up to heaven from me to you 
Acceptable, of spotless hecatombs ; 
And if from vows fulfilled and reverence 
Be favor in your sight, — then hear my prayer, 
And soon be it accomplished : let the hand 
Wither that wrought me this, the brain that planned 



24 ORION. 

Rave and henceforth be mocked and plagued of devils, 
Let every good be turned for him to gall, 
And those his heart most cherishes become 
A horror, till he flee from them as fiends. 
But is this pain forever, this my night 
Eternal? Thou that mad'st the day and night, 
Make thou a day for me ! O Earth, my mother, 
All bountiful, all pitiful, take heed 
Into what evil on thy breast hath fallen 
Thy son ! O sleepless sea, behold my woe ! 
O air all-folding, stars immovable, 
With everlasting contemplation wise, 
Know ye no remedy ? Forests and fields, 
Tempests untiring, streams, and steadfast hills, 
Flame-riven caverns, hear me, for ye know me ! 
Tell me ; I hearken." And his bended head 
Besought the rocks. 

"Thou shalt behold the morning," 
Brake clearly on the ample-bosomed silence, 
And straight begot as many widening waves 
As doth a pebble on a resting lake. 
The echoes hurtled inland, startling all 
The olive-groves and vineyards, rippling up 
The green foot-hills, and lapping faint and low 
About the low fir-copses ; then they reached 
The upper gorges, dying in that region, — 



ORION. 25 

Region of sounding pines and cataracts 
Impregnable to silence. Then, again, 
Even in the lifting of his head, and making 
Thanksgiving with mute lips, clear, far, and fine, 
Out of the vaporous raiment round their tops 
Came comfort from the hills : 

" Up to the hills ; 
Thou shalt behold the morning!" 

Then he bowed 
With godlike reverence, reverencing the gods 
And ancient powers that watched him, and made quick 
His sense to their communion. 

Now a sound 
Of hammers rose behind a jagged cape 
Not many paces hence, with windy roar 
Of new-awakened fire. With pain and toil, 
Groping and staggering, hands, and knees, and feet 
Bruised with the crags, and faint, he came where men 
Wrought arms and forged the glowing bronze for war. 
There one came forth to meet him; him he took 
Upon his kingly shoulder, and him bade 
Of courtesy to be to him for eyes, 
To guide his feet that quickly he might fare 
To the hill-crests, or ere the fiery flower 
Of dawn bloomed fully. 

So they two went thus 



26 ORION. 

Up from the sombre, bitter-breathing sea, 

Beside the river, o'er the slumbrous sward 

Gossamer-spread, dew-drenched, and in among 

The vineyards and the olives. The fresh earth 

Heavy about his feet, the bursting wealth 

Of big grape-bunches, and the cool, green coils 

Of dripping vines breathed richly. Swift they moved 

'Mid gnarled trunks and still, gray stretch of leaves, 

Without a sound save of wet twigs snapped dully 

Or flit of startled bird. And now their way 

They kept with toil, fallen on toilsome ways, — 

Up shattered slopes half-clothed with juniper, 

Through ragged-floored ravines, whose blasted scars 

Held mighty pines root-fast in their black depths, 

Still climbing, till a keen wind met them full 

From eastward breathed, free-scented from the brine. 

His laboring feet stood still, and while his lips 

Drank the clear wind, his guide, descending home, 

Left him alone facing the gates of dawn. 

The cliffs are rent, and through the eternal chasm 

A far-heard moan of many cataracts, 

With nearer, ceaseless murmur of the pines, 

Came with the east wind, whilst the herald gold 

From cloven pinnacles on either hand 

On gradual wings sank to that airy glen ; 



ORION. 

And many-echoed dasli of many waves 
Rose dimly from the cliff-base where they brake, 
Far down, unseen ; and the wide sea spread wan 
In the pale dawn-tide, limitless, unportioned — 
Aye sentinelled by these vast rocky brows 
Defaced and stern with unforgotten fires. 

But he, intent, leaned toward the gates of dawn 
With suppliant face, unseeing, and the wind 
Blew back from either brow his hair and cooled 
His eyes that burned with that so foul dishonor 
Late wrought upon them, whispering many things 
Into his inmost soul. Sudden the day 
Brake full. The healing of its radiance fell 
Upon his eyes, and straight his sightless eyes 
Were opened. All the morning's majesty 
And mystery of loveliness lay bare 
Before him ; all the limitless blue sea 
Brightening with laughter many a league around, 
Wind-wrinkled, keel-uncloven, far below; 
And far above the bright sky-neighboring peaks ; 
And all around the broken precipices, 
Cleft-rooted pines swung over falling foam, 
And silver vapors flushed with the wide flood 
Of crimson slanted from the opening east 
Well ranked, the vanguard of the day, — all these 



27 



2 8 ORION. 

Invited him, but these he heeded not. 

For there beside him, veiled in a mist 

Where — through the enfolded splendor issued forth,- 

As delicate music unto one asleep 

Through mist of dreams flows softly, — all her hair 

A mist of gold flung down about her feet, 

Her dewy, cool, pink fingers parting it 

Till glowing lips, and half-seen snowy curves 

Like Parian stone, unnerved him, waited she, — 

Than Circe skilfuller to put away 

His pain, to set his sorrow afar off, — 

Eos, with warm heart warm for him. His toils 

Endured in vain, his great deeds wrought in vain, 

His bitter pain, CEnopion's house accurst, 

And even his sweet revenge, he recked not of; 

But gave his heart up straightway unto love. 

Now Delos lay a great way off, and thither 

They two rejoicing went across the sea. 

And under their swift feet, which the wave kissed 

But wet not, — for Poseidon willed it so, 

Honoring his son, — and all along their way 

Was spread a perfect calm. And every being 

Of beauty or of mirth left his abode 

Under the populous flood and journeyed with them. 

Out of their deep green caves the Nereids came 



ORION. 29 

Again to do him honor ; shining limbs 
And shining bosoms cleaving waked the main 
All into sapphire ripples eachwhere crowned 
With yellow tresses streaming. Triton came 
And all his goodly company, with shells 
Pink-whorled and purple, many-formed, and made 
Tumultuous music. Ocean's tawny floor 
They all left vacant, empty every bower, 
And solitary the remotest courts. 
Following in the midst of the array 
Their mistress, her white horses paced along 
'Over the unaccustomed element, 
Submissive, with the wonted chariot 
Pillowed in vapors silver, pink, and gold, 
Itself of pearl and fire. And so they reached 
Delos, and went together hand in hand 
Up from the water and their company, 
And the green wood received them out of sight. 



ARIADNE. 



Hung like a rich pomegranate o'er the sea 
The ripened moon ; along the tranced sand 

The feather-shadowed ferns drooped dreamfully ; 

The solitude's evading harmony 

Mingled remotely over sea and land ; 

A light wind woke and whispered warily, 
And myriad ripples tinkled on the strand. 



She lay face downward on the sighing shore, 
Her head upon her bended arm ; her hair 

Loose-spreading fell, a heart-entangling store; 

Her shoulder swelling through it glimmered more 
Divinely white than snows in morning air; 

One tress, more wide astray, the ripples bore 

Where her hand clenched the ooze in mute despair. 
30 



ARIADNE. 31 



III. 

A wandering wind laughed over her, then slunk 
Shamefast away, laden with her deep woe, 

Smit with the consciousness that she had drunk 

Griefs numbing chalice to the dregs, and sunk, 
As deep as ever mortal soul could go, 

To sleep's dim caves : while, like a wave-borne trunk, 
Did her still body no life-promise show. 

IV. 

Then stronger stirred her pulses ; and a sound 
Of her deep-drawn and slowly-measured breath, 

Now shattered by a gasping sob, or drowned 

By sudden rustlings of the leaves around, 
Told of her spirit driven back from Death, 

Whom it had sought with forehead duly bound 
With fillets, where the hemlock wavereth. 

v. 

A many-throated din came echoing 

Over the startled trees confusedly, 
From th' inmost mountain folds hurled clamoring 
Along the level shore to droop its wing : 



3 2 



ARIADNE. 



She blindly rose, and o'er the raoon-track'd sea 
Toward Athens stretched her hands, — "With shouts 
they bring 
Their conquering chieftain home; ah me ! ah me !" 

VI. 

But clearer came the music, zephyr-borne, 
And turned her yearnings from the over-seas, 

Hurtled unmasked o'er glade and belted bourne, — 

Of dinning cymbal, covert-rousing horn, 
Soft waxen pipe, shrill-shouted Evoes : 

Then sat she down unheeding and forlorn, 
Half dreaming of old Cretan melodies. 

VII. 

Like thought quick-frozen in the vivid brain 

At need of sudden, vast emergency, 
She sat there dazed and motionless ; the main 
Sobbed round and caught her longest tress again, 

And clasped her shell-like foot, nor heeded she ; 
And nearer, and nearer, like thick gusts of rain, 

The clamor swelled and burst upon the sea : 

VIII. 

The thickets rocked ; the ferns were trampled down ; 
The shells and pebbles splashed into the waves ; 



ARIADNE. 



33 



The white sands reeked with purple stains and brown, 
With crushed grape-clusters and fig-bunches strown ; 

Hoof 'd sylvans, fauns, satyrs from mossy caves, 
Fur-clad Bacchantes, leapt around to drown 

God Bacchus' voice, whose lip the crimson laves. 

IX. 

His thyrsus, wreathed with many-veined vine 
That magically blossomed and bare fruit, 

He waved above the crowd with grace divine, 

And straightway by the silver waste of brine 
They laid them gently down with gesture mute ; 

The while he twined his persuasions fine 

And meshed her grief-clipt spirit with his lute. 

x. 

These sweet entanglements he closely wove, — 
" A god hath heard thy plainings piteous ; 

A god's deep heart thy shrill shriek shuddering clove ; 

A god hath left his incense-teeming grove, 

And sought thee by the chill sea's barrenness j 

A god's strong spirit night-long vainly strove, 
And fell before thy mortal loveliness. 

XI. 

" Forget the subtle-tongued Ionian's love, 

His speech that flowed like honey, and his vows ; 



34 ARIADNE. 

Forget the deaf, black ship that fleetly drove, 
Leaving thee hopeless in this moaning cove ; 

Forget the Past's dumb misery, and rouse 
Thy heart and lift thy spirit clear above 

Dead griefs as fitteth godhead's promised spouse. 

XII. 

"And hearken, maiden ! I will love thee well. 

Then rise and follow, rise and follow, rise 
And give a god thine hand, and come and dwell 
With gods, and drink the purpling oenomel, 

And slake desire with aught that lures thine eyes, 
From flowerful hermitage in some green dell 

To sphere-realms in the star-entangled skies. 

XIII. 

"Rich largess of all crystalline delights, 
With converse of the well-persuading lyre, 

Shall satisfy thee of sweet sounds and sights, 

And each compelling beauty that excites 
A yearning shall fulfil its own desire ; 

And vintagers shall worship thee with rites 
Of wine outpoured and vervain-nourished fire. 

XIV. 

" And all these pleasures shall be sure for thee; 
And woven through them like a golden thread 



ARIADNE. 35 

The certainty of one fixt love for thee, 

And that a god's, shall bind them fast for thee, — 

So fast that by no finely-stinging dread, 
Lest they should prove some dream-wrought mockery, 

Shall thy heart's joyance e'er be visited." 

xv. 
And so with silver-linked melodies 

He wooed her till the moon lay pale and low ; 
And first she lifted up her dreaming eyes 
And dreamed him her old love in fairer guise ; 

And then her soul drew outwards, and a glow 
Woke in her blood of pleasure and surprise, 

To think it was a god that loved her so. 

xvi. 
And last she rose up happily, and gave 

Her hand to him, by sudden love made bold, — 
The while the sun got up refreshed and drave 
Square-shouldered through the lucent mists, that clave 

To the clear-echoed inland hills, and rolled 
Along their peaks in many a pallid wave, 

Or floated coldly o'er the molten gold, — 

XVII. 

And went with him where honey-dew distils 

Through swimming air in odorous mists and showers, 



36 ARIADNE. 

Where music the attentive stillness fills, ! 
And every scent and color drips and spills 

From myriad quivering wings of orchid flowers ; 
And there they dwelt deep in the folded hills, 

Blissfully hunting down the fleet-shod hours. 

XVIII. 

And who shall say her love was incomplete ? 

For love fares hardly on ingratitude, 
And love dies quickly nurtured on deceit, 
And love turns hatred captured by a cheat ; 

And love had died while in despair immewed ; 
And this god's love was surely very sweet, 

For she was a forsaken maid he wooed. 



LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR 
QUEENS. 

PART I. 

Launcelot sleepeth under an apple-tree. 

Where a little-trodden byway 
Intersects the beaten highway 

Running downward to the river, 
Stands an ancient apple-tree 
In whose blossoms drowsily 

The bees are droning ever. 

Back along the river's edge 
Twists a tangled hawthorn hedge, 

In whose thickets lurks the thrush ; 
Broods the skylark in the meads, 
Floats the teal among the reeds, 

The warm wild-roses flush ; 

37 



3 8 LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 

The sundews clasp their glistening beads, 
The sun in mid-sky reins his steeds, 

And languid noon enwraps the earth ; 
Scarce a living creature stirs, 
Save some gadding grasshoppers 

That heedless prate their mirth. 

'Neath the fruit-tree's latticed shade 
An errant knight at length is laid, 

In opiate noon's deep slumber sunk ; 
His helm, well proved in conflicts stern, 
Lies in a tuft of tender fern 

Against the mossy trunk. 

A robin on a branch above, 
Nodding by his dreaming love 

Whose four blue eggs are hatched not yet, 
Winks, and watches unconcerned 
A spider o'er the helm upturned 

Weaving his careful net. 

The sleeper's hair falls curling fair 
From off his forehead broad and bare, 

Entangling violets faint and pale ; 
Beside his cheek a primrose gleams, 
And breathes her sweetness through his dreams, 

Till grown too sweet they fail. 



LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 39 



PART II. 

And as he sleeps four queens come by 
And spy him 'neath the apple-tree. 

Of his fair show enamored sore 
They 'prison him by sorcery. 

Hark, the voices blithe and gay ! 
Four queens of great estate are they, 
And riding come they up this way, — 

Come they up from out the river; 
On four white horses do they ride, 
And four fair knights do ride beside, 

As is their custom ever. 

On upright spear each knight doth bear 

One corner of an awning rare 

Of silk, all green, and bordered fair 

With mystic-symbolled broidery ; 
And o'er the ladies' milky-white, 
Soft shoulders falls the tinted light, 

And nestles tremblingly. 

Now come they where they well may see 
The blossom-veiled apple-tree. 
Quoth Eastland's queen,— " It grieveth me 
That on the branch but blossoms are ! 



4 o LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 

If it were only autumn now, 
And apples crowned the stooping bough, 
I'd deem it fairer far: 

" Drooping so ripe and melting mellow, 
Rind-streaked red and flecked with yellow, 
Each one fairer than its fellow, 

Oh, methinks I see them now!" 
Thus quoth she ; but Morgane le Fay 
Hath cast her eyne another way, 

And peereth 'neath the bough. 

" Now swear I on my life," quoth she, 
" Fairer fruit is 'neath the tree 
Than e'er will be upon the tree. 

See ye yon knight in armor black ? 
Can looks so brave and limbs so strong 
To any lowlier knight belong 

Than Launcelot du Lac ? 

" Faith ! we the fairest knight have found 
That ever lady's arms en wound, 
Or ever lady's kisses crowned ; 

Myself can wish no royaller lover." . . 
" Nay ! Think you then to choose for him," 
Quoth Eastland's queen, " while shadows dim 

His sheeny eyelids cover ? 



LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 41 

" Certes, 'twere discourtesie ! 
But put a spell of secrecy 
Upon his drowsy eyne, till we 

May bring him to our magic towers ; 
Then let him choose which one of us 
Shall deck for him the amorous, 

Deep, blossom-scented bowers." 

They weave a spell of witchery 
Above his drowsy eyne, till he 
Is breathing slow and heavily ; 

Then bear him homeward on his shield. 
His war-horse neighs behind the hedge, 
The duck drops back into the sedge, 

The lark into the field. 



PART III. 

He waketh in a chamber high, 
With tapestries adorned fair ; 

Unto a window climbeth up, 
And chanteth unto Guinevere. 

In place of green o'ershadowing 

Launcelot sees above his head- 
And, smiling, turns his magic ring — 
A dragon fixt with brooding wing, 
And dismal claws outspread. 



42 LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 

He gives the ring a prayerful turn, 

Which aye was wont to put to flight 
AH lying visions ; but the stern, 
Black dragon's eyeballs seem to burn 
With smouldering, inward light. 

Now doth he slowly come aware 

No glamour 'tis, nor painted dream, 

But oak, all carved with cunning care, 

And for its eyes a sullen pair 

Of mighty jewels gleam. 

From samite soft he lifts his head, 

Instead of earthy-scented moss ; 

Four walls he sees all fair bespread 

With yellow satins, garnished 

With legends wrought across. 

Half-hidden by a storied fold 

An arched door he sees, shut close ; 
The sun, far-sunken o'er the wold, 
Through arched windows sluicing gold 

In sloping, moted rows, 

Gleameth upon the topmost tier 

Of armor on the farther walls ; 
Shimmers in gules and argent clear \ 



LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 43 

Bathes the carven rafters bare ; 
Then seeks adown the ocean sheer 
His sleepless azure halls. 

Now paleth silver on the floor 

In place of gold upon the roof; 

From a young moon the still gleams pour, 

That from the sun, her paramour, 
Yet walketh not aloof. 

Where bars the window-niche emboss, 

Launcelot, climbing, chanteth clear ; 
His song it floateth soft across 
The dreaming trees that fringe the foss, 
And seeketh Guinevere : 

" Hearken, Guinevere ! 

Hear me, oh, my love ! 
Waketh thy soul wistfully ? 

Hither let it rove ; 
Hither tripping swift 

O'er the silvered meadows, 
With whispers for my prisoned ears 

Fill the vacant shadows, 

Guinevere. 

" Hearken, Guinevere ! 
Warm about my neck 



44 LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 

Might I feel thy clasped arms, 

Little would I reck 
Prisonment or chains ; 

Bitterer bonds hast thou 
Link'd of rippled locks upon me, 

And I kiss them now, 

Guinevere. 

" Hearken, Guinevere ! 

Spake thine eyes in silence, 
As a stream that fareth softly 

Thorough summer islands ; 
Uttered suddenly 

What I never guess'd, — 
How I could betray my king 

At his queen's behest, 

Guinevere. 

" Hearken, Guinevere ! 

Magic potenter 
Than hath brought me to this plight 

Hath thy bosom's stir ; 
Subtler witchery 

Hath thy whispering, 
To make me foul before my God 

And false unto my king, 

Guinevere." 



LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 45 



PART IV. 

The queens essay to have his love 
Denies he them disdainfully. 

A damsel comes and pledges her 
For service due to set him free. 



A dewy breeze laughs through the bars, 

With meadow scents and early light ; 
And soon appear the ladies fair 

In silken vestures richly dight : 
" The noblest knight of Arthur's court 

We know thee for, Sir Launcelot ! 
Who, save for Lady Guinevere, 

For lady carest not. 

" And now thou art our prisoner, 

And shalt lose her, and she lose thee ; 
So it behoveth thee to choose 

One of us four for thy ladye. 
And choose thou not, here shalt thou die. 

So choose : I am Morgane le Fay, 
Here Eastland's queen, there she of the Isles, 

North Wales accepts her sway." 



46 LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 

Saith he : " This is a grievous case, 

That either I must quit sweet life 
Or keep it bitter with one of ye ; 

Yet liefer will I death to wife 
With worship, than a sorceress, 

As ye are each, I'll lay me by. 
What boots it that one's body live 

An' his dear honor die !" 

"Is this your answer?" question they. 

"Yea, is it," laughs he carelessly. 
Then go they sorely sorrowing, 

Leaving his spirit only free. 
And training that to lonely flight, 

He seats him on his couch's side, 
Till scent and song are heavy-winged 

About the hot noontide. 

A breeze slips in refreshingly, 

As slowly swings the oaken door, — 
Swings slow and lets a damsel in 

Bearing a most enticing store 
Of fare to cheer his sinking heart, 

And set his slackened strings in tune, — 
Collops of meat that taste of the woods, 

And mead that smells of June. 



LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 47 

"111 fareth it with thee, Sir Knight !" 

" Ne'er spakest thou a truer word, 
Fair damsel," saith he, heavily, 

While up the walls the arras stirred. 
Saith she : "This magic-bred mischance 

Shall vaunt not to have mastered thee ; 
I'll see thee clearly quits with it 

And thou' It be ruled by me." 

"What service wouldst thou?" asketh he. 

" To help my father Tuesday next, 
Who hath agreed a tournament 

Him and North Wales's king betwixt ; 
For Tuesday last we lost the field." 

" Fair maid, who may thy father be? 
Needs is it that thou tell me this, 

Then will I answer thee." 

" King Bagdemagus is his name." 

Saith he : "A knightly knight, and true, 
And gentle ; by my body's faith 

I will thee willing service do." 
She turns, and lifts the trencher up, 

And seeks the door with paces steady : 
"When dripping Phosphor flickers gray 

Be ready." 



48 LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 

PART V. 

When western folds are flocked with stars, 
And larks are quivering up the blue, 

Four clamped doors, eleven locks, 

And seven gates, she leads him through. 

The blue has killed the gray ; 
White fleeces swiftly stray 
From the shepherd feet of day 

Over their azure pasture ; 
To their morning baths addrest, 
The gusts with wrinkling zest 
Over the river's breast 

Are following fast and faster. 

The door swings open wide, 
And quickly side by side 
Adown the steps they glide 

To an iron-bolted gateway ; 
What Magic makes Truth mars ; 
And through her fortunate stars 
These hell-forged bolts and bars 

Open before her straightway. 

She brings him to his steed, 
Hidden with mindful heed 
Where mossy foot-paths lead 

From a broken pier on the river ; 



LAUNCELOT AND THE FOUR QUEENS. 49 

He draws his saddle-girth, 

And tries his lance's worth, 

Then canters with lightsome mirth 

Out from the thickets that quiver. 



In primal sympathy 

All nature laughed with glee, 

Shouted to feel him free, 

Drank of his breath and kissed him ; 
Nothing of sound and scent, 
Color and coolness blent, 
Nothing the morning meant 

In its myriad speeches missed him. 

Over a knoll or two, 

Grassy, and drenched with dew, 

His blossomed pathway drew 

Till a screen between had risen ; 
Then in his iron shoes 
He rose and waved his " adieus : 
"Methinketh neither I'll choose, 

Nor die in your witches' prison." 



BALLAD OF THE POET'S THOUGHT. 



A poet was vexed with the fume of the street, 
With tumult wearied, with din distraught ; 

And very few of the passing feet 

Would stay to listen the truths he taught : 
And he said, — " My labor is all for naught ; 

I will go, and at Nature's lips drink deep." — 
For he knew not the wealth of the poet's thought, 

Though sweet to win, was bitter to keep. 

So he left the hurry, and dust, and heat 

For the free, green forest where man was not ; 
And found in the wilderness' deep retreat 

That favor with Nature which he sought. 

She spake with him, nor denied him aught, 
In waking vision or visioned sleep, 

But little he guessed the wealth she brought, 
Though sweet to win, was bitter to keep. 
50 



BALLAD OF THE POETS THOUGHT. 5I 

But now when his bosom, grown replete, 

Would lighten itself in song of what 
It had gathered in silence, he could meet 

No answering thrill from his passion caught. 

Then grieving he fled from that quiet spot, 
To where men work, and are weary, and weep ; 

For he said, — "The wealth for which I wrought 
Is sweet to win, but bitter to keep." 

ENVOI. 

Oh, poets bewailing your hapless lot, 

That ye may not in Nature your whole hearts'steep, 
Know that the wealth of the poet's thought 

Is sweet to win, but bitter to keep. 



A BALLAD OF THREE MISTRESSES. 



Fill high to its quivering brim 

The crimson chalice, and see 
The warmth and whiteness of limb 

Light-draped luxuriously ; 

Hark the voice love-shaken for thee, 
My heart, — and thou liest ere long 

In the close captivity 
Of wine, and woman, and song. 

Though sweetly the dark wine swim, 

More sweet, more tyrannous she 
Who, till the moon wax dim, 

Rules man from east sea to west sea. 

And strong tho' the red wine be, 
Ne'ertheless is woman more strong, 

Most fair of the Jove-given three, — 
Of wine, and woman, and song. 
52 



A BALLAD OF THREE MISTRESSES. 53 

But the rhyme of thy Rhine-sung hymn 

Is more sweet than thyself, Lorelie ! 
As over the night's blue rim 

Thou chantest voluptuously ; 

So stronger is song for me 
To bind with a subtiler thong, — 

Her only may I not flee 
Of wine, and woman, and song. 

envoi. 

Then her must I serve without plea 
Who doeth her servants much wrong, 

Queen Song of the Jove-given three, — 
Of wine, and woman, and song. 



BALLAD TO A KINGFISHER. 



Kingfisher, whence cometh it 

That you perch here, collected and fine, 
On a dead willow alit 

Instead of a sea-watching pine ? 

Are you content to resign 
The windy, tall cliffs, and the fret 

Of the rocks in the free-smelling brine? 
Or, Kingfisher, do you forget ? 

Here do you chatter and flit 

Where bowering branches entwine, 
Of Ceyx not mindful a whit, 

And that terrible anguish of thine ? 

Can it be that you never repine ? 
Aren't you Alcyone yet? 

Eager only on minnows to dine, 
O Kingfisher, how you forget ! 
54 



BALLAD TO A KINGFISHER. 

To yon hole in the bank is it fit 

That your bone-woven nest you consign, 
And the ship-wrecking tempests permit 

For lack of your presence benign ? 

With your name for a pledge and a sign 
Of seas calmed and storms assuaged set 

By John Milton, the vast, the divine, 
O Kingfisher, still you forget. 

ENVOI. 

But here's a reminder of mine, 
And perhaps the last you will get ; 

So, what's due your illustrious line 
Now, Kingfisher, do not forget. 



55 



BALLAD OF A BRIDE. 



Bring orange-blossoms fairly twined, 

Fair-plaited wreaths to wreathe her hair, 
Sweet-smelling garlands meet to bind 

Her brows, and be out-glistened there ; 

Bring radiant blooms and jewels rare 
Against the happy bridal day ; — 

A sound of parting thrills the air : — 
Hearken a little to my lay. 

Now, blossoms shine, but ye shall find 

Beside her brow ye are not fair ; 
Breathe sweetly an' ye have a mind, 

But with her breath can ye compare ? 

Bright garlands, ye less lovely are, 
Nathless adorn her while ye may, — 

Even now her thoughts are otherwhere :- 
Hearken a little to my lay. 
56 



BALLAD OF A BRLDE. 

Now hasten, maids; the flowers wind 
Amidst her hair with loving care : 

Wind roses, for their red consigned 
Beside her blushes to despair, 
Such happy beauty doth she wear ; 

But haste, — her glad feet scarce will stay, 
Nor us she heeds, for he is near: — 

Hearken a little to my lay. 

ENVOI. 

He comes, they go, a blissful pair ; 

Full willingly she speeds away ; 
Full lightly heeds she this my prayer, — 

Hearken a little to my lay. 



57 



LOVE-DAYS. 

The sweet-mouthed shore hath wed the singing sea, 
And winds are joyous with their kissing chime. 
The voice-beseeching rapture of the time 

An utterance hath found in every tree, 
In bursts of happy rhyme. 

All nature loves, and loves are all fulfilled. 
Me only hope deferred and waitings long 
Keep silent ; me these rich completions wrong : 

Ah ! when shall I have leave my lips to gild 
With a sweet marriage-song ? 

From scenes of glad love crowned, long gone down 
The droning-billowed reaches of the years, 
The lotus-flutes are shrilling in mine ears, 
And torches flash into mine eyes, and drown 
Their sight in envious tears. 
58 



59 



LOVE- DAYS. 

All lovers surely now are satisfied, 

Save only we, whom yet no threshold waits, 
For whom not yet the inner temple's gates 

Have lifted : how much longer must we bide, 
Pressing reluctant fates ? 



Oh, too long tarryings make a weary way ! 

Then kiss me, Love, and kiss me ; for the wings 
Of time are ever dropping divers things; 

And who may from the promise of to-day 
Guess what the morrow brings ! 



MEMNON. 



Weary, forsaken by fair, fickle sleep, 

A traveller rose, and stood outside his tent, 
That shrouded was in dusky shadows deep, 

By palm-trees cast that o'er it kindly leant. 

A low moon lingered o'er a large extent 
Of lifeless, shifting sands ; her pallid rays 

Had kissed the scorched waste to sweet content ; 
And now her farewells whispering, still she stays, 
As loth to leave the land to Phoebus' fiery blaze. 

ii. 

Slowly she sinks ; and faint streaks quietly creep 
Up from the east into the dusky sky ; 

Aurora's yellow hair, that up the steep 
Streams to the rear of night full breezily, 

Shaken from her flushed fingers that now dye 
60 



MEMNON. 6 1 

The under-heavens crimson ; now she springs 
Full-blown before the Day, and hastens by 
With silver-footed speed and yearning wings, 
To kiss a form of stone that at her coming sings. 

in. 

Thrilled at the voice the traveller starts aside, 
And sees the image, prostrate, half enwound 

With red, unstable sand-wreaths, and its wide 

Forehead, and lips that moved not with their sound 
Celestial, lined with many a furrowed wound, 

Deep-graven by the gnawing desert blast : 

Half-buried sphinxes strewed the waste around, 

And human-headed bulls, now mouldering fast, — 

Their impious shapes half gone, their greatness wholly 
past. 

IV. 

Out of this desolation vast and dead, 

Now glorified and clothed in red and gold, — 

Brightness befitting Egypt's hero's bed, — 
A matin to his goddess mother rolled 
From dawn-kissed lips, that also kissed the mould 

Of their decaying substance. The sweet psalm 
Thrilled in the listener's ears, with manifold 

Cool music mingled of the murmuring palm ; 

And accents large and sad deepened the lifeless calm. 



62 MEMNON. 



" Sweet mother, stay ; thy son requireth thee ! 

All day the sun, with massive, maddening glare, 
Beats on my weary brow and tortures me. 

All day the pitiless sand-blasts gnaw and wear 

Deep furrows in my lidless eyes and bare. 
All day the palms stand up and mock at me, 

And drop cool shade over the dead bones there, 
And voiceless stones, that crave no canopy : 
O beautiful mother, stay ; 'tis thy son prayeth thee. 

VI. 

" O mother, stay; thy son's heart needeth thee ! 

The night is kind, and fans me with her sighs, 
But knoweth not nor feeleth sad for me. 

Hyenas come and laugh into my eyes, 

The weak bats fret me with their small, shrill cries, 
And toads and lizards crawl in slimy glee. 

Thou comest — and my tortures dost surprise — 
And fondlest me with fresh hands tearfully. 
O dewy-lipped mother, stay ; thy son desireth thee. 

VII. 

" O mother, why so quickly wouldst thou flee? 

Let Echo leave her mountain rocks and twine 
My words with triple strength to cling to thee 



MEMNON. 63 

And clog thy limbs from flight as with strong wine ; 
Let them recall sweet memories of thine, 

Of how the long-shadowed towers of wind-swept Troy- 
Were dear to thee, and near, whilst thou didst pine 

For the god- faced Tithonus, and the joy 

Thou drank' st when thou hadst gained the willing, 
kingly boy. 

VIII. 

"O mother, how Scamander chided thee, 

And swelled his tawny floods with grief for him, 

And drowned his oozy rushes by the sea ; 
For often have I heard such tales from him, 
Thou listening, whilst the purple night did swim 

Reluctant past, and young yEmathion hung 
Upon thy wealthy bosom ; music, dim 

In ears not all divine, the nigh stars sung, 

Of thine high origin Hyperion's courts among. 

IX. 

"O mother, what forebodings visited thee 

From the Laconian's ravish' d bridal bed ; 
What mists of future tears half blinded thee 

When Ilion's god-built gates, wide-opened, 

Let in the fatal Spartan woman wed 
To Troy in flames, dogs gorged with Trojan slain, 

And tears of thine, mother, for thy son dead. 



64 MEMNON. 

Dead ; would my soul were with the body slain, 
Nor stony-fetter' d here upon this Theban plain ! 

x. 

"O mother, what glooms darkened down on thee, 
And tearful fears made thy scared eyelids red, 

When me thou sawest by some god's enmity 
Madly to meet Pelides' fury led, 
Sparing the aged Nestor's childless head 

By me made childless. On the Phrygian plain, 
Between the bright-eyed Greeks and Trojans bred 

Warriors, I met the Phthian ash in vain, 

Which bade my breast's bright wine the trampled 
stubble stain. 

XI. 

" Then, mother, weeping, thou to Jove didst flee, 

And wring thy fingers, and, a suppliant, 
Didst kneel before him, grasping his great knee 

And awful beard, and clinging like a plant 

Of ivy to an oak, till he should grant 
Peculiar honors, not vouchsafed before, 

To thy son's obsequies ; nor didst thou pant 
And pray in vain, and kiss his beard all hoar, 
And large ambrosial locks that veiled the sapphire 
floor. 



MEMNON. 65 

XII. 

"For, mother, when the ruddy-bosomed sea 
Had drunk its fill of fire, and, climbing high, 

Smoke of my funeral-pyre, with savory 
Odors of oil and honey, 'riched the sky, 
Out of the seething flames a cloud did fly 

Of shrill-voiced birds, — like swarms of swarthy bees 
That move their household gods in young July, — 

And, screaming, fought and perished, to appease 

My manes and fulfil impelling Jove's decrees. 

XIII. 

" O mother, hath my song no charm for thee, 

To hamper thee from flight ? Thou then didst wait 
Scarce till the lustral drops were dry for me, 

And embers parch' d with dark wine satiate ; 

But wast away through the Hesperean gate 
To mourn o'er waters Atlantean. Now 

Thy loose locks trailed are in golden state 
Down the far side of yon keen peaks of snow ; 
The brazen sun hath come, and beareth on my brow. 

xiv. 
" Soon will for me the many-spangled night 

Rise, and reel round, and tremble toward the verge ; 
Soon will the sacred Ibis her weird flight 

Wing from the fens where shore and river merge, 
5 



66 MEMNON. 

With long-drawn sobbings of the reed-choked surge. 
The scant-voiced ghosts, in wavering revelry 

For Thebes' dead glory, gibber a fitful dirge : 
Would thou wert here, mother, to bid them flee ! 
O beautiful mother, hear; thy chained son calleth 
thee." 



RONDEAU.— "HESPER APPEARS." 

Hesper appears when flowing gales 
Have filled the sunset's fervid sails, 
When down the low dim orient hills 
The purple gloaming soft distils 
To nestle in the crooning vales. 

To fretted hearts whom want assails, 
Whom Youth, nor Hope, nor Love avails 
To loose their wearying load of ills, 
Hesper appears, 

Lifting the sordid dusty veils 
That wrap us till our courage fails : 
Ah, vexed hearts ! The hour fulfils 
Your yearnings with its peace, and stills 
Awhile man's myriad fretful wails, — 
Hesper appears. 

67 



RONDEAU.— "WITHOUT ONE KISS. 



Without one kiss she's gone away, 
And stol'n the brightness out of day; 
With scornful lips and haughty brow 
She's left me melancholy now, 
In spite of all that I could say. 

And so, to guess as best I may 
What angered her, awhile I stay 
Beneath this blown acacia bough, 
Without one kiss ; 



Yet all my wildered brain can pay 
My questioning, is but to pray 
Persuasion may my speech endow, 
And Love may never more allow 
My injured sweet to sail away 
Without one kiss. 
68 



RONDEAU TO A. W. STRATON. 

(Written in his autograph album.) 

To fledge the hours with mirth and ease 
And wing their feet with pleasantries, 
Till heedlessly they hasten by 
As cloudlets down the summer sky, 
Or bats mid twilight shadowed trees, 

Or petals on the noontide breeze, 
Full oft our laboring minds should please. 
So now to you I come to try 
To fledge the hours. 

And oft when they shall seem to lie 
Wingless and footless, we may buy 
Wings for them from such names as these, 
And happy-colored feathers seize 
From their upspringing memories 
To fledge the hours. 

69 



THE FLIGHT. 



She rose in the night and fled ; 

Such a night there was never another. 
And her small hands shewed they red ? 

What need ! It is cleanly to smother. 
In warm arms sleeps the young wife, 
And he fondles her, — " Love ! my life !" — 
Ha ! ha ! but the child lies dead — 

Sweet dreams to you, father and mother ! 

Her hair streams out on the wind, 

The tree-tops wail and mutter, 
The dry leaves patter behind, 

And before the gray bats flutter ; 
Three crows are hastening after, — 
But whence is that flying laughter? 
She knows not, following blind, 

Nor heeds what the voices utter. 
70 



THE FLIGHT. 

Down the long, moon-lighted glades 

Where the pale ghosts moan and shiver, 
Through writhen, poisonous shades 

Where the night-shades heavily quiver ; 
Where the reeking hollows are mute 
She treads down the toad and the newt, 
And thro' hemlock, sweet when love fades, 
She hastens, and rests not ever. 

Shun yon thicket of grass ! — 

A body lies there forgotten. 
Strange it should come to pass 

Before the body is rotten. 
They have crushed his head with a stone — 
" Ha ! ha ! I am not alone." 
And she flies ; while up the morass 

Roll the night-mists swamp-begotten. 

Her light feet scale the crags 

Where the wild-goat scarce could follow, 
And never her swift flight flags 

Till she reaches a yawn-mouthed hollow 
Where a goodly company feast — 
Of man, and devil, and beast, 
And by torch-light revel the hags, 

And the beasts they grovel and wallow. 



7i 



7 2 



THE FLIGHT. 

She comes among them by night, 
Her long hair over her falling, 

Her white feet torn in her flight, 

And they gather around her brawling. 

They shriek, they applaud, they groan, — 

" Lady, we welcome our own. 

Come and feast, thou hast won the right, — 
To wake him will need much calling." 



ONE NIGHT. 

The wood is cold, and dank, and green ; 

The trunks stand close in sullen row ; 
A crooked moon through a creeping screen 

Of night-fog rots in the roots below. 

The pool is thick, and dead, and green ; 

Its bubbles gleam the roots below ; 
To feed the slimy growths between 

The slimy roots the ooze drips slow. 

My feet can find no standing-place, 

The monstrous trunk my arms grasp not ; 

Across the roots upon my face 
I fall, and pray my soul can not. 

And one came by, and bare a load — 
An unstrange form — to where I lay ; 

Into the pool he cast his load : 

" Look to it," he said, and went away. 

73 



74 ONE NIGHT. 

The thick scum closed ; the body slid 

Beneath the roots to where I lay, 
And rose face up : I fain had hid 

My eyes ; their lids forgot the way. 

And fain my hands had hid my face, 
But could not quit their slimy hold ; 

Close to my face its loathly face 

Uprose, and back its swathings rolled. 

Its dead eyes woke and with mine met 

Familiarly ; at that I wept. 
My tears fell big and fast, and set 

More foulness forth the scum had kept. 

And more I wept more foul it grew ; 

All else grew black, and my heart dropped down. 
I had lain there for an age, I knew, 

And must lie there till the body sank down. 

Then One came by to where I lay ; 

He had heard my tears and come to me. 
He had heard my tears (for I could not pray), 

And pitied me, and had come to me. 

He touched the body, and it sank down 

Beyond my sight, though the pool was clear ; 



ONE NIGHT. 75 

And the space above was a sapphire crown 
Upon their heads, for the trees to wear. 

He stood me up upon my feet, 

And the trunks were dry and my hands were clean ; 
The breath of laughing leaves was sweet : 

And he left me in this pleasant scene. 



A SONG OF MORNING. 

Weird Night has withdrawn 
Her gleaming black tresses, 
And, sighing for sorrow, 
Has fled from the dawn, 
Sinking her sleep-woven wings in the west, 
To breathe there her kisses 
On tired hearts that borrow 
Her balm of sweet lethe and rest. 

And Morning, upspringing 
From out the gray ocean 
With rosy-lipped laughter, 
Her yellow locks flinging 
O'er forest and fountain, field, fallow, and sky, 
With breezy, bright motion, 
Is hastening after, 
While vapor-veiled glamours sail by. 
76 



ODE TO DROWSIHOOD. 

Breather of honeyed breath upon my face ! 

Teller of balmy tales ! Weaver of dreams ! 

Sweet conjurer of palpitating gleams 
And peopled shadows trooping into place 

In purple streams 
Between the drooped lid and the drowsy eye ! 

Moth-winged seducer, dusky-soft and brown, 
Of bubble gifts and bodiless minstrelsy 

Lavish enough ! Of rest the restful crown ! 
At whose behest are closed the lips that sigh, 

And weary heads lie down. 

Thee, Nodding Spirit ! Magic Comforter ! 

Thee, with faint mouth half speechless, I invoke, 
And straight uplooms through the dead centuries' 
smoke 
The aged Druid in his robe of fur, 

Beneath the oak 
Where hang uncut the paly mistletoes. 

77 



7 8 ODE TO DROWSIHOOD. 

The mistletoe dissolves to Indian willow, 
Glassing its red stems in the stream that flows 

Through the broad interval ; a lazy billow 
Flung from my oar lifts the long grass that grows 

To be the Naiad's pillow. 



The startled meadow-hen floats off, to sink 

Into remoter shades and ferny glooms ; 

The great bees drone about the thick pea-blooms ; 
The linked bubblings of the bobolink, 

With warm perfumes 
From the broad-flowered wild parsnip, drown my brain ; 

The grakles bicker in the alder boughs ; 
The grasshoppers pipe out their thin refrain 

That with intenser heat the noon endows : 
Then thy weft weakens, and I wake again 

Out of my dreamful drowse. 

Ah ! fetch thy poppy-baths, juices exprest 
In fervid sunshine, where the Javan palm 
Stirs scarce awakened from its odorous calm 

By the enervate wind, that sinks to rest 
Amid the balm 

And sultry silence, murmuring, half asleep, 
Cool fragments of the ocean's foamy roar, 



ODE TO DROWSIHOOD. 



79 



And of the surge's mighty sobs that keep 
Forever yearning up the golden shore, 

Mingled with song of Nereids that leap 
Where the curled crests downpour. 

Who sips thy wine may float in Baiae's skies, 
Or flushed Maggiore's ripples, mindless made 
Of storming troubles hard to be allayed. 

Who eats thy berries, for his ears and eyes 
May vineyard shade 

Melt with soft Tuscan, glow with arms and lips 
Cream-white and crimson, making mock at reason. 

Thy balm on brows by care uneaten drips ; 
I have thy favors, but I fear thy treason. 

Fain would I hold thee by the dusk wing-tips 
Against a grievous season. 



ODE TO NIGHT. 



The noon has dried thy dewdrops from my wings, 
My spirit's wings, so they no longer soar ; 

And, drooping more and more, 
I pant, O Night, for thy soft whisperings 

Of bounteous blessings which thou hast in store 

For me, and all who serve thee with due rites ; 
Not with a riotous loose merriment, 

That thy soft wrath excites ; 
But with sweet yielding to thy lavishment 
Of warm syringa-scented breathings, blent 

With tranced draughts of subtle-souled delights. 



Low-sighing zephyr, pulsing from the west, 
Before thee sheds earth-purifying dew, 
As priests were wont to do 
With lustral waters, ere the victims, dressed 
For sacrifice, felt the keen-searching knife. 
80 



ODE TO NIGHT. 81 

Then, thy light-fingered forager, and rife 

With thefts from all lush odors and sweet sounds, 
He drowses on thy skirt ; 
Whilst thou, breast-full of new, sweet milk of life, 
Loosest the robe thy bounteous bosom bounds, 
With heart's-ease blooms and marigolds begirt. 

in. 

Dear goddess, come. Thy feather-sandalled feet 
Tread out the dying crimsons of the day, 
Whose warm, red-spirted spray 
I'll find soft-changed to flushes rosy sweet, 
Dowered by thee to my love's lips and cheeks : 
My love, with whom is covert from the freaks 
Of Folly, so heart-vexing through the light, 
With whom a safe retreat, 
In whose dusk bower sour Envy never speaks, 
Nor poison drips from venomed fangs of Spite ; 
Thither, dear Night, we'll haste on happy feet. 



AMORIS VINCULA. 

Subtler than all sorceries 
This tender breath upon mine eyes ; 
Surer than steel, though soft as air, 
These fetters of caressing hair ; 
Yet they gall not me, nor smart, 
Heart-fast to a girlish heart. 

Wakes upon the quiet night 
Clamor of strife of might and right, 
And bears unto a girlish ear 
Vague messages of pain and fear, 
And girlish arms more close enlace 
To shield me in their weak embrace. 

Ah, I too had girded me 
And stood among the strong and free, — 
Had struck, and shrunk not, for the right, 
Amid the red death of the fight, — 
82 



AM OR IS VINCULA. 3- 

Had fought and won, or fallen with them 
That wear the hero's diadem. 

I even now were smiting strong 

In the front ranks, to smite the wrong, 

But a girlish voice saith nay, — 

Bids me stay, and I must stay : 

Let Freedom rise, or faint, or fall, 

Here is my faith, my fame, my all. 



ITERUMNE? 

Ah me ! No wind from golden Thessaly 
Blows in on me as in the olden days ; 
No morning music from its dew-sweet ways, 

No pipings, such as came so clear to me 

Out of green meadows by the sparkling sea ; 
No goddess any more, no Dryad strays, 
And glorifies with song the laurel maze ; 

Or else I hear not and I cannot see. 

For out of weary hands is fallen the lyre, 
And sobs in falling ; all the purple glow 
From weary eyes is faded, which before 
Saw bright Apollo and the blissful choir 

In every mountain grove ; — nor can I know 
If I shall surely see them any more. 
84 



AT POZZUOLI. 

At Pozzuoli on the Italian coast 

A ruined temple stands. The thin waves flow 
Upon its marble pavements ; and in row 

Three columns, last of a majestic host 

Which once had heard the haughty Roman's boast, 
Rise in the mellow air. Long years ago 
The unstable floor sank down. Now from below 

The shining flood of sapphire, — like the ghost 

Of youth's bright aspirations and high hopes, 
More real than castles in the air, and laid 

On some foundation, though of sand that slopes 
Seaward to lift again, — it comes arrayed 

In olive sea-weeds ; but a raven mopes 
Upon its topmost stone, and casts a shade. 

85 



SAPPHO. 



Her hair it floated fair and free 
In the blushful evening sky ; 

The purple sea 

Sobbed wearily, 
To the curlew's mournful cry ; 

Her white feet mock'd 

The barren rock, 
With their warmth and beauty and life ; 

Her white hands prest 

All close her breast, 
To stifle its bursting strife. 

The musical sea 

Sobbed musically, 
The warm wind whispered her, — "Flee 

Counsel I thee 

That thou warily flee 
The fair-seeming snare of the sea." 
86 



SAPPHO. 87 

But deeper she drank, 

As the gold sun sank, 
The mist of the sea's purple breath ; 

While the sun's last embrace 

Lit flame in her face, 
And her eyes searched the shadows of Death. 

But the shadows are driven, 

Like night-clouds riven, 
From her eyes by a heaven of song, 

That trembles and floats, 

In silver-lipped notes, 
From a light skiff drifting along : 

All the singers save one 

Full-faced to the sun, 
But the one to the rim of the moon ; 

And it seemed the tune 

Was the voice of the moon, 
Or the moon the embodied tune. 

O'er the tingling pink 

Of her eager ear's brink 
The golden melody swells, 

As a ripple's song slips 

In the dawn-kissed lips 
Of listening, mimicking shells ; 



88 SAPPHO. 

And chases away — 

So enchanting the lay — 

Her purpose and pain, forsooth, 
Till she sees the face, 
In the thin moon's embrace, 

Of the Mitylenian youth ; 

And the shadows return, 
And her drooped lids burn, 

And she calls to him under her breath ; 
Then leaps to meet, 
At the cliff's chilled feet, 

The hungry embraces of Death. 



And the slumbrous sea 
Wakes tremulously, 

And thrills to his furthest streams; 
And a sudden glow 
Through the depths below 

Gives the Nereids blissful dreams ; 
And the deepest sea-graves 
In Leucadian caves 

Are lighted with golden gleams, 
As though the sunk sun 
Had thitherward run 

To pry with his fronting beams. 






SAPPHO. 

And the musical sea 
Sings more musically 

Than he ever has sung before, 

And the whole night long 
His syrenal song 

Beguiles the soul of the shore. 
And at peep of morrow 
In red-eyed sorrow 

The Lesbian maids come by ; 
And search the sand 
Of the rippled strand, 

And the shallows remote and nigh ; 
But they see the maiden 
All tenderly laid in 

A coral bed deep from harms ; 

And for all their endeavor 
The sea will not give her 

From his encircling arms. 
Nor ever could they 
Have won her away, 

For all their Ionian cunning, 
Had not the sea-maids, 
In their emerald braids, 

Who were wont to sit a-sunning 

In the sea-monarch's smile, 
In their envy and guile 



90 SAPPHO. 

Upborn her again to the shore, 
Which shall gleam with the blaze of her funeral-pile, 
But throb with her song no more. 



Chorus of Lesbian youth, singing around the funeral-pyre. 

SEMI-CHORUS I. 

Scatter roses from full hands ; 

Wreathe bright garlands ; bring white heifers. 
Call sweet savors from far lands, 

Borne on wings of morning zephyrs. 

SEMI-CHORUS II. 

Burn, with olives' outpressed fatness, 

Riches of the swarthy bees. 
Bring to slake the thirsty embers 

Wine new-purged from the leas. 

SEMI-CHORUS I. 

Twine the voices ; wreathe the song ; 
Weave a dirge of mythic numbers. 

SEMI-CHORUS II. 

Breathe it high and sweet and strong, 
For ye will not pierce her slumbers. 



SAPPHO. 



CHORUS. 



91 



Jove-bestowed, thy passioned singing 
O'er the Grecian nations came ; 

Was in Grecian ears a heaven, 
And in Grecian blood a flame. 

Now thy songful lips are silent ; 

But thy deathless song shall dwell 
In men's bosoms, and its echoes 

Down far-distant ages swell. 

And forever thy sweet singing 

Rich to hearts of men shall come, 

In its meaning and its music 

A full goblet crowned with foam. 

Now the sea lies gray and chilly 
Under the wet streaks of dawn ; 

Now the dull red embers darken, 
And their glow is almost gone : 

Quench them ; pour the last libation ; 

Slake them with red Lesbian wine ; 
In wrought brass enclose her ashes : 

Once more are the Muses nine. 



MIRIAM.— I. 

Sapphics. 

Miriam, loved one, were thy goings weary ? 
Journeyed not with thee one to brighten thy way ? 
Lighted with love-light how could it be dreary? 
Was it not my way? 

Why wert thou weary ? All the golden glories 
Streaming from love's lamp thy enraptured sight won ; 
Sweetly we whispered old self-heroed stories, 
Miriam, bright one ! 

Crimson lipp'd love-flowers sprang about us going, 
Clustering closely, rosy shadows weaving ; 
Straight from our footsteps glowing ways were flowing, 
Vistas far-cleaving. 
92 



MIRIAM. 93 

Silvery lute-notes thrilled athrough the noonlight, 
Flutings of bird-throats light as flight of swallow ; 
Scents rose around us thick as in the moonlight 
Leaves fall and follow. 

How could I dream that thou wert growing weary ? 
Never I guessed it till I saw thee fading ; 
Saw thee slip from me, — and my way fell dreary. 
Cease thine upbraiding ! 

Cease thine upbraiding, ah, my widowed spirit! 
Trace on thy path by rays from backward sight won. 
More than I gave thee the bliss thou dost inherit, 
Miriam, bright one ! 



MIRIAM.— II. 



CHORIAMBICS. 



Ah, Love, what would I give just for a little light ! 

Cryings born of the wind wake on its undertones. 
Vainly praying the shore wearily all the night 
Round me the ocean moans. 

Ebb-tides laden with woe flee with a wailful song 

Far down out of the dark, calling my trembling soul. 
Ah, Love, where is the light? Why is the way so 
long? . . . 
Hearken how sad their roll ! 

Ay, sad surely, but sweet ! Why do they always call, — 
All night through the thick dark calling me out to 
thee ? 
Lured by surf-whispers soft, feebly my footsteps fall 
Toward the enfolding sea. 
94 



MIRIAM. 



95 



Nay ! I cover my ears ; 'tis not the way to thee. 
Why doth it play me false now that my paths are 
blind ? 
When they lay in the light born of thy love to me, 
Never it seemed unkind. 



Sweet it sang in the light, scarce could it dream a 
dirge ; 
Fringed with ripples of blue tinkled the strand like 
bells ; 
When, thy hand in my hand, crushed we along its 
verge 
Pebbles and pink-lipp'd shells. 

Ah ! but full were the hours, full to the heart's desire; 

Flowing over with love, golden their flying feet. 
Deep and sweet was the air, shining and clear like fire, 
Vital with balmy heat. 



Warm, — but now it is cold ; bright, — it is wild and 
dark; 
Dimly over the sea lieth the gleamless pall ; 
Dimly out of the sea murmur the voices. Hark ! 
Do not they sweetly call ? 



9 6 



MIRIAM. 



Stay me, Miriam, Love; chill is the drifting foam. 
Come, Love, meet me with strength ; fierce is the 
moaning sea. 
Peace ! peace ! vainly I call ; thou wilt not quit thy 
home ; 
Wait ; I will come to thee. 



A BLUE BLOSSOM. 

A small blue flower with yellow eye 
Hath mightier spell to move my soul 
Than even the mightiest notes which roll 

From man's most perfect minstrelsy. 
A flash, a momentary gleam, 
A glimpse of some celestial dream, 

And tears alone are left to me. 

Filled with a longing vague and dim, 

I hold the flower in every light ; 

To purge my soul's redarkened sight 
I grope till all my senses swim. 

In vain ; I feel the ecstasy 

Only when suddenly I see 
This pale star with the sapphire rim. 

Nor hath the blossom such strange power 
Because it saith " Forget me not" 
For some heart-holden, distant spot, 

Or silent tongue, or buried hour. 

7 97 



9 8 A BLUE BLOSSOM. 

Methinks immortal memories 
Of some past scenes of Paradise 
Speak to my spirit through the flower. 

Forgotten is our ancient tongue ; 

Too dull our ears, our eyes too blind, 
Even quite to catch its notes, or find 

Its symbols written bright among 
All shapes of beauty. But 'tis hard, 
When one can hear, to be debarred 

From knowledge of the meaning sung. 



THE SHANNON AND THE CHESA- 
PEAKE. 

Oh, shout for the good ship Shannon, 
And cheer for the gallant Brooke, 

For hot was the fight she fought 
And staunch the ship he took. 

When the might of the land was astonished, 
And wreck on wreck had gone down, 

The old flag fast at the peak, 

But the old flag's fame o'erthrown, 

Then Brooke in the good ship Shannon 
Set it forth in face of the world 

That "hearts of oak" still flourished 
To keep the old flag unfurled. 

'Twas the fair-starred first of June, 

A day of glorious days, 
When York and Penn drove the Dutch, 

And Howe put the French to amaze ; 

99 



IO o THE SHANNON AND THE CHESAPEAKE. 

And out from Boston Harbor 
The frigate Chesapeake steered ; 

Not a sound save the wash on her bows, 
Till her crew broke silence and cheered. 

In curt return from the Shannon 
Came a round shot over the rail, 

And sullenly, one by one, 

Fell the first of the deadly hail. 

Then full in its blind, white thunder 
Burst the wrath of that iron rain, 

Sweeping the broad decks bare 
Till their timbers staggered again. 

And the men crouch down for their lives, 
And the heavy pall of the smoke 

Is rent by the fierce, red flashes 
And the splinter's hurtling stroke. 

Hot work at the belching cannon, 
In the sweat, and powder, and grime, 

Till the Chesapeake's steersman falls, 
And firing slacks for a time ; 

For she drops afoul of our quarter, 
And her gallant captain dies. 



THE SHANNON AND THE CHESAPEAKE. 101 

Grapple now, for her mightiest bulwark 
Is fallen where Lawrence lies. 

We swarm in over the taffrail, 

With hot strokes taken and given, 

And Brooke at our head, till the foe 
To the hold or the chains are driven. 

We haul down the "Stars and Stripes;" 
But, oh, the grief and the woe ! — 

A matter of twisted halliards, 
And the storm-worn flag below. 

But it costs us dear, that blunder, 

For our gunner misunderstands, 
And Watt and five brave seamen 

Take death at their comrades' hands. 

But, hark you, there is the summons ! 

And sullenly they comply. 
Brave men ; they fought till hope perished, 

But better surrender than die. 

Now cheer for the good ship Shannon, 
And the good fight fought that morn, 

For the old flag's vindication, 
And its ancient honor upborne ! 



I0 2 THE SHANNON AND THE CHESAPEAKE. 

But woe must be in such warfare, 
Though lost be the battle or won, 

For brother's slaughter of brother 
And father smitten of son. 

Pray God that England no more 

Stand wroth from her daughter apart ! 

Pray God one blood and one tongue 
Be one in hand and in heart ! 

But let a great wrong cry to heaven ; 

Let a giant necessity come ; 
And now, as of old, she can strike, 

She will strike, and strike home. 



THE MAPLE. 



Oh, tenderly deepen the woodland glooms, 

And merrily sway the beeches ; 
Breathe delicately the willow blooms, 

And the pines rehearse new speeches ; 
The elms toss high till they brush the sky, 

Pale catkins the yellow birch launches, 
But the tree I love all the greenwood above 

Is the maple of sunny branches. 

Let who will sing of the hawthorn in spring, 

Or the late-leaved linden in summer ; 
There's a word may be for the locust-tree, 

That delicate, strange new-comer ; 
But the maple it glows with the tint of the rose 

When pale are the spring-time regions, 
And its towers of flame from afar proclaim 

The advance of Winter's legions. 

j 03 



104 



THE MAPLE. 

And a greener shade there never was made 

Than its summer canopy sifted, 
And many a day as beneath it I lay 

Has my memory backward drifted 
To a pleasant lane I may walk not again, 

Leading over a fresh, green hill, 
Where a maple stood just clear of the wood — 

And oh, to be near it still ! 



TO WINTER. 

Ruling with an iron hand 

O'er the intermediate land 

Twixt the plains of rich completeness, 

And the realms of budding sweetness, 

Winter ! from thy crystal throne, 

With a keenness all thy own 

Dartest thou, through gleaming air, 

O'er the glorious barren glare 

Of thy sunlit wildernesses, 

Thine undazzled level glances, 

Where thy minions' silver tresses 

Stream among their icy lances ; 

While thy universal breathing, 

Frozen to a radiant swathing 

For the trees, their bareness hides, 

And upon their sunward sides 

Shines and flushes rosily 

To the chill pink morning sky. 

105 



I0 6 TO WINTER. 

Skilful artists thou employest, 

And in chastest beauty joyest, — 

Forms most delicate, pure, and clear, 

Frost-caught starbeams fallen sheer 

In the night, and woven here 

In jewel-fretted tapestries. 

But what magic melodies, 

As in the bord'ring realms are throbbing, 

Hast thou, Winter? — Liquid sobbing 

Brooks, and brawling waterfalls, 

Whose responsive-voiced calls 

Clothe with harmony the hills, 

Gurgling meadow-threading rills, 

Lakelets' lisping wavelets lapping 

Round a flock of wild ducks napping, 

And the rapturous-noted wooings, 

And the molten-throated cooings, 

Of the amorous multitudes 

Flashing through the dusky woods, 

When a veering wind hath blown 

A glare of sudden daylight down ? — 

Naught of these ! — And fewer notes 

Hath the wind alone that floats 

Over naked trees and snows ; 

Half its minstrelsy it owes 

To its orchestra of leaves. 

Ay ! weak the meshes music weaves 



TO WINTER. 107 

For thy snared soul's delight, 
'Less, when thou dost lie at night 
'Neath the star-sown heavens bright, 
To thy sin-unchoked ears 
Some dim harmonies may pierce 
From the high-consulting spheres : 
'Less the silent sunrise sing 
Like a vibrant silver string 
When its prison'd splendors first 
O'er the crusted snow-fields burst. 
But thy days the silence keep, 
Save for grosbeaks' feeble cheep, 
Or for snow-birds' busy twitter 
When thy breath is very bitter. 

So my spirit often acheth 
For the melodies it lacketh 
'Neath thy sway, or cannot hear 
For its mortal-cloaked ear. 
And full thirstily it longeth 
For the beauty that belongeth 
To the Autumn's ripe fulfilling ; — 
Heaped orchard-baskets spilling 
'Neath the laughter-shaken trees; 
Fields of buckwheat full of bees, 



108 TO WINTER. 

Girt with ancient groves of fir 

Shod with berried juniper; 

Beech-nuts mid their russet leaves ; 

Heavy-headed nodding sheaves ; 

Clumps of luscious blackberries ; 

Purple-cluster' d traceries 

Of the cottage climbing-vines ; 

Scarlet-fruited eglantines ; 

Maple forests all aflame 

When thy sharp-tongued legates came. 

Ruler with an iron hand 
O'er an intermediate land ! 
Glad am I thy realm is border' d 
By the plains more richly order'd, — 
Stock' d with sweeter-glowing forms, — 
Where the prison 'd brightness warms 
In lush crimsons thro' the leaves, 
And a gorgeous legend weaves. 



EPISTLE TO W. BLISS CARMAN. 

September, 1878. 

An azure splendor floats upon the world. 

Around my feet the blades of grass, impearled 

And diamonded, are changing radiantly. 

At every step new wonders do I see 

Of fleeting sapphire, gold, and amethyst, — 

Enchanting magic of the dew sun-kissed. 

The felon jay mid golden-russet beeches 

Ruffles his crest, and flies with startled screeches. 

Ever before me the shy cricket whistles 

From underneath the dry, brown, path-side thistles. 

His gay note leads me, and I quickly follow 

Where dips the path down through a little hollow 

Of young fir-seedlings. Then I cross the brook 

On two gray logs, whose well-worn barkless look 

Tells of the many black-gown-shadowed feet 

Which tread them daily, save when high June's heat 

Scatters us wide, to roll in cool salt billows 

Of Fundy's make, or under hanging willows 

109 



no EPISTLE TO W. BLISS CARMAN, 

Slide the light birch, and dream, and watch the grasses 
Wave on the interval as the light wind passes, 
Puffing a gentle cloud of smoke to scare 
The sand-flies, which are ravening everywhere. 

Such our enjoyment, Bliss, few weeks ago ; 
And the remembrance warms me with a glow 
Of pleasure, as I cross the track and climb 
The rocky lane I've clambered many a time. 
On either side, where birch and maples grow, 
The young firs stand with eager hands below, 
And catch the yellow dropping leaves, and hold 
Them fast, as if they thought them dropping gold ; 
But fairy gold they'll find them on the morrow, 
When their possessing joy shall turn to sorrow. 

Now thro' the mottled trunks, beneath the boughs, 
I see the terrace, and the lower rows 
Of windows drinking in the waking air ; 
While future Freshmen stand around and stare. 
******* 
Last week the bell cut short my happy strain. 
Now half in pleasure, half in a vague pain, 
For you I undertake my rhyme again. 
Last week in its first youth saw you begin 
Your happy three-years' course with us, and win 
The highest honors, half of which are due 
To your own strength of brain, and half accrue 



EPISTLE TO W. BLISS CARMAN. Iir 

To that wise master from whose hands you came 

Equipped to win, and win yourself a name. 

But I, — I have but one quick-slipping year 

To spend amid these rooms and faces dear, 

And then must quit this fostering roof, these walls, 

Where from each door some bright-faced memory calls, 

And halt outside in sore uncertainty, 

Not knowing which way lies the path for me 

Through the unlighted, difficult, misty world. 

Ah, whither must I go ? Thick smoke is curled 

Close round my feet, but lifts a little space 

Further ahead, and shews to me the face — 

Distorted, dim, and glamourous — of Life ; 

With many ways, all cheerless ways, and rife 

With bristling toils crowned with no fitting fruit, — 

All songless ways, whose goals are bare and mute. 

But one path leads out from my very feet, — 

The only one which lures me, which is sweet. 

Ah ! might I follow it, methinketh then 

My childhood's brightest dreams would come again. 

Indeed, I know they dwell there, and I'd find 

Them meeting me, or hastening up behind. 

See where it windeth, alway bright and clear, 

Though over stony places here and there ; 

Up steep ascents, thro' bitter obstacles, 

But interspersed with glorious secret dells ; 



H2 EPISTLE TO W. BLISS CARMAN. 

And vocal with rich promise of delight, 

And ever brightening with an inward light 

That soothes and blesses all the ways that lie 

In reach of its soft light and harmony. 

And were this path made for my following, 

Then would I work and sing, and work and sing; 

And though the songs were cryings now and then 

Of me thus singing in the midst of men, — 

Where some are weary, some are weeping, some 

Are hungering for joys that never come ; 

And some drive on before a bitter fate 

That bends not to their prayers importunate; 

Where some say God is deaf and hears not now, 

And speaks not now, some that He is not now, 

Nor ever was, and these in fancied power 

See not the mighty workings of' each hour, 

Or, seeing, read them wrong. Though now and then 

My songs were wailings from the midst of men, 

Yet would I deem that it were ever best 

To sing them out of weariness to rest ; 

Yet would I cheer them, sharing in their ills, 

Weaving them dreams of waves, and skies, and hills ; 

Yet would I sing of Peace, and Hope, and Truth, 

Till softly o'er my song should beam the youth, — 

The morning of the world. Ah, yes, there hath 

The goal been planted all along that path ; 



EPISTLE TO W. BLISS CARMAN. 

And as the swallow were my heart as free, 
Might I but hope that path belonged to me. 

I've prated so, I scarce know what I've said ; 
But you'll not think me to have lost the thread, 
Seeing I had none. Do not say I've kept 
My promises too amply, and o'erleapt 
A letter's bounds; nor harshly criticise; 
But miss the spots and blots with lenient eyes. 
Scan not its outer, but its inner part ; 
'Twas not the head composed it, but the heart. 



i J 3 



DEDICATION. 



These first-fruits, gathered by distant ways, 
In brief, sweet moments of toilsome days, 

When the weary brain was a thought less weary, 
And the heart found strength for delight and praise,— 

I bring them and proffer them to thee, 
All blown and beaten by winds of the sea, 

Ripened beside the tide-vext river, — 
The broad, ship-laden Miramichi. 

Even though on my lips no Theban bees 
Alighted, — though harsh and ill-formed these, 

Of alien matters in distant regions 
Wrought in the youth of the centuries, — 

Yet of some worth in thine eyes be they, 
For bare mine innermost heart they lay ; 

And the old, firm love that I bring thee with them 
Distance shall quench not, nor time bewray. 

Fredericton, July, 1880. 



